Four Easy Tips For a Greener Beauty Routine

Any time is a good time to be more environmentally cautious, but Earth Month is the gentle kick in the pants that gets me going hardcore green. We'll have more earth-mama ideas and reviews as April progresses, but for now, check out these ideas to kick-start your eco-friendliness.

Choose natural scrubs: Face and body scrubs with plastic beads create debris that ends up in the ocean. Unless you want to be a polluting dolphin-choker, opt for scrubs made with salt, sugar, or fruit kernels.

Ditch the cotton: Cotton balls usually go through an environmentally unfriendly bleaching process. Use a washcloth or muslin cloth to remove makeup instead, and if you do use pure cotton balls, compost them when you're finished.

Lose the wrapping: Avoid buying products that come with unnecessary packaging. (Ahem.) Instead, choose products that have little or no packaging, such as Lush's solid shampoos.

Go vegan: While you might not be ready to give up eating meat, you can make your beauty routine more animal friendly. Brands such as BeFine, Nature's Gate, Yes to Carrots, and Sevi deliver good looks while leaving sheep and bunnies alone. (FYI, though, my esthetician insists that vegetarians look younger longer. Just saying.)

Arbonne has great VEGAN skin care and make up products but they are pricey. A lot of times I will make my natural skin care 'products' like: ground oatmeal face masks (they are the best!!), sea salt and coconut oil (or olive oil) body scrubs or sometimes brown sugar scrubs. Clearly I don't have time to do this as often as I'd like to. But sometimes I do.
And being a vegan (for almost 10 years now) I *love* that last sentence Bella :o)

Edie J Blige -- sure thing. Juice Beauty has some great face products, and 100% Pure has a body scrub that uses coffee for the scrub. Bath and Body Works has an aromatherapy line of body scrubs, and the Sanctuary scrub at Target feels super-luxurious but isn't crazy expensve. In the drugstore, I like St Ives' apricot scrub for my body (but not the face — too rough!).

One green line that I really like is Juice Beauty. They use natural, organic juices in most of their products and they are still really effective. They are not 100% natural, but they are certainly closer than most of the other brands out there.
I also love a lot of the Lush products. Has anyone ever tried their Henna Hair Dyes? They seem interesting to me, but I'm not sure how I would feel about actually using one.

One green line that I really like is Juice Beauty. They use natural, organic juices in most of their products and they are still really effective. They are not 100% natural, but they are certainly closer than most of the other brands out there. I also love a lot of the Lush products. Has anyone ever tried their Henna Hair Dyes? They seem interesting to me, but I'm not sure how I would feel about actually using one.

"polluting dolphin-choker" dear God! I do my best to be good to the planet as well as myself but unfortunatly on one income and lots of big bills like rent, car payment I can't always AFFORD to buy green products. Maybe these lines should come up with more financially aware and green products since not everyone has excess income to blow on $20 shampoo. Sorry!

Suki and Just Natural are two other fab natural, organic and non-animal testing lines. My current facial scrub is by Suki and it uses sugar instead of beads; it is the yummiest smelling scrub and seems to be helping my acne-prone skin. I plan on trying some of Lush's products in the future.
As for my diet, I do not eat red meat, pork and most fish (tuna is the exception.) Sweets are my downfall and until I can 99% quit them, I am buying organic snacks (Kashi, Natures Promise and Paul Newman's products are delish!) I am a semi-vegetarian.

Suki and Just Natural are two other fab natural, organic and non-animal testing lines. My current facial scrub is by Suki and it uses sugar instead of beads; it is the yummiest smelling scrub and seems to be helping my acne-prone skin. I plan on trying some of Lush's products in the future.As for my diet, I do not eat red meat, pork and most fish (tuna is the exception.) Sweets are my downfall and until I can 99% quit them, I am buying organic snacks (Kashi, Natures Promise and Paul Newman's products are delish!) I am a semi-vegetarian.

Hey Bella, can you suggest some natural scrubs? I've used Aveeno Skin Brightening Daily Scrub for years. It says its noncomedogenic, but I have no idea what that means. I certainly don't want to kill any dolphins, do you have any recommendations?

I clicked on the "ahem" and I really appreciate what the blogger wrote and I sent an email to Olay :D!. . .Lush also makes a lot of vegan products . . . but Lush has some very pricey/high-end products. I like being green but a bar of Lush is like 5x the cost of a bar of Dove or Neutrogena.

I clicked on the "ahem" and I really appreciate what the blogger wrote and I sent an email to Olay :D!
. . .Lush also makes a lot of vegan products . . . but Lush has some very pricey/high-end products. I like being green but a bar of Lush is like 5x the cost of a bar of Dove or Neutrogena.